What Happened
Yesterday my local Alternative radio station (96.5 the Buzz) talked about a stabbing that happened last Saturday in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Unfortunately, stabbings happen all the time. However, this one was far more horrible than most, and had a specific strange detail that was enough to make me fairly interested in this heinous crime.
The victim was a 12-year-old female who was lured into the woods by two other 12-year-olds, her “friends,” and was brutally stabbed 19 times.
The young victim not only survived this attack by crawling to her own rescue, but is in stable condition in a local hospital.
Now, obviously this is awful news, and I in no way find this particular type of horror satisfying or entertaining, but there is a certain aspect to this crime that is not only creepy as hell, but raises some important questions to the “horror community.”
You see, the suspects, who may be charged as adults and face up to 65 years in prison, claimed they stabbed their “friend” in order to please Slenderman.
Fans of online horror writing and, specifically, creepypasta.com will know that Slenderman is a popular fictitious horror character represented by a suit clad, faceless man in a black suit (and sometimes back tentacles).
Slenderman appears when something awful happens and exists only in the peripherals. However, he is also entirely made up (despite what some conspiracy theorists may believe).
The fact that these preteens believed in the online bogeyman enough to attempt a murder in his name has posed several questions about horror fiction that have the media talking.
Should Creepypasta Writer’s be Held Responsible?
Absolutely not. However, I’m sure there are plenty of people who believe that the site should hold some blame, or at least that’s what the media is making it sound like.
I would love to go into a long-winded discussion about how fiction should never be blamed for reality, but creepypast said it best in their statement on the stabbings.
If you clicked on that link and took the time to read the statement (which I hope you did), you may have noticed this line, which sort of sums it all up for me:
“Unless you’re okay with blaming the world’s ills on Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft, I don’t believe that it makes sense to say paranormal writing or an interest in the macabre should be blamed or even used as an indicator of a “sick” person […]”
This statement says it all, but also alludes (possibly unintentionally) to the fact that Stephen King himself was a victim of accusations when his book titled Rage was quoted by a gunman during a school shooting. King, although just another victim, decided to pull the novel because of the guilt he felt.
Should the Parents be Blamed?
Well, no, not exactly.
The subject on the radio, where I first heard of the “Slenderman Stabbing” seemed to be that parents should do a better job at monitoring what their kids view on the internet, but let’s think about that for a minute.
We live in a country where the internet is literally everywhere. It’s on computers, on phones, on tablets, hell, it’s on televisions. So it’s not really difficult for someone to get some alone time with the web.
Also, given the things that I was in to when I was 12, I don’t think my parents would’ve really given a second glance to online horror fiction.
So, Who do we Blame?
The two would-be-killers that stabbed their “friend” 19 times.
You may say “they’re just kids! We can’t blame them!” but you would be oh, so wrong. These “kids” had something wrong with them to begin with, and horror fiction didn’t cause it.
I’ve mentioned before that I have always been interested in the scary and macabre, and I do mean always. I enjoyed scary posters, toys and pictures LONG before I was old enough to read horror stories or enjoy horror movies. Therefore, I think it’s obvious that I enjoy going to horror sites and reading online scary stories because of who I am, not because these sites made me type their content into Google for the first time, which of course, made me obsessed with horror.
What I’m getting at here is that these “kids” already knew what they wanted to look at/read, and it’s because they already had an interests in horrible things, only in a not-so-healthy way.
I hate the idea of children being tried as adults, and I hate thinking of 12-year-olds spending their whole life in prison. But these 12-year-olds, maybe one of them more than the other, seem to be sick, and people who are sick in that way simply cannot be free to hang around other children.
B.G.'s Horror Blog 